Sunday, January 26, 2014

You Can Now Find Us On Instagram!

You know we are on Facebook, but did you know we are now on Instagram? Check us out! www.instagram.com/movenlearnacademyoffinearts

Friday, January 24, 2014

What Comes After Move-N-Learn Academy?

Families since 1986 have enjoyed having their children in Move-N-Learn Academy.We are actually now very proud to say that we have a second generation with us in Move-N-Learn Academy! But the big question for years has been, "what do we do after Move-N-Learn Academy?". The majority have taken their children to public schools, others have went to a private Christian school and even some have opted to home school. Knowing that our students would outgrow our little school, we have always worked hard to provide them with the best possible education that they would succeed with, no matter where they chose to transition to. But there have been times that we have heard that our students have had a hard time transitioning to other learning environments. They loved Move-N-Learn Academy and nothing compares to it when you bring in the arts, as we do. Hearing this for years sent us on a search towards possibly starting our own private elementary school. But that again, leads once again to transitioning to a middle school later. Then along came virtual schools for K-12. So we started our research in that direction and found new opportunities growing for our current students and future students. And then came virtual public schools. Once again, we started looking at the different virtual public school available to families in Oklahoma. This then led us to trying to make the right contacts to see if there was a way of bringing the virtual public school into our facilities for our families. Months and months of trying turned to success in March 2013 when we were able to get an appointment with the principal of Oklahoma Connections Academy, Tammy Shepherd. In meeting with Tammy, I was able to point out that many families might want to attend Oklahoma Connections Academy Virtual Public School, but because their system assumes that all families have the ability of a parent staying in the home and being the "Learning Coach", it limits what families are in position to make the move. After some discussion, a conclusion was made that it was possible for families to choose to enroll with OKCA and outsource the learning coach position to us. Parents are still involved in their child's education because it is the parent that will take care of the enrollment procedures with OKCA. Parents are also still involved with the Parent Teacher conferences and other situations, such as field trips and clubs, that are available for their children. Our position as "Learning Coach" for your child means that we are the ones that will work with your child to complete their assignments.Learning coaches are limited to only five students, unlike your brick and mortar teachers that have 20-30 students. Our learning coaches will also sit in on the Parent Teacher conferences as well, thus meaning there are three people working together for your child's success, parent, virtual teacher and learning coach. But the best part of this situation is that children that are enrolled with OKCA and with Academy of Fine Arts (Move-N-Learn Academy), can complete their educational studies in a shorter day than attending a brick and mortar school, and then move into our performing and fine arts programs to fine tune and progress faster in their craft. We even have a plan for those students that have a desire for sports as well. Registration and transfer into OKCA is this spring. The process is simple and again, Oklahoma Connections Academy Virtual Public School is FREE. The only fees you pay are to Academy of Fine Arts for the learning coach position and your performing and fine arts or sports. As always, we fully qualify our teachers for their positions and they undergo a national background check and drug tests. We also hire for personality to be able to communicate well with children. Oklahoma Connections Academy is for grades K-12 which transitions well with our from our part time private Preschool and Pre-K programs. It is also an easy transition back to a brick and mortar school is you find that this setting is not right for your child or family. We will be offering a meeting, either onsite or at another location for parents that want to know more, meet a representative of OKCA and give consideration to this new learning environment. Please watch our BLOG as well as our Facebook page and website for more information. This is an exciting journey for us as we transition into a private education (with a public virtual school) situation for our students. We hope that you will be willing to investigate it further by going to the OKCA website at www.connectionsacademy.com/OKCA as well as our website at www.academyoffineartsok.com Please watch for more posts to this blog.